0.5.0 Public Beta Test

[deft tartan]

❗ DISCLAIMER!

Before jumping straight in, please understand, that this version of the game might be unstable, create issues when switching between old & new builds of the game, and may generally be less stable, more buggy, and in an overall imperfect state. We will do our best to help you with any issues, but please understand the risks associated with beta testing.

❗ HOW TO JOIN THE PUBLIC BETA?

If you understand the potential problems and are willing to take the risk, here's how you can get in:

• Open your Steam client, find Yet Another Zombie Survivors on your games list, right-click its name and select the "Properties..." option.
• Enter the "Betas" tab, click the "None" drop-down menu on the right, and select the "public-beta" option. You can always return to the default version of the game by selecting "None" again.

❗ WHAT ARE WE TESTING?

For the list of changes, please refer to:

News post on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2163330/view/3868093247544648357
"In Beta Testing" column in our Roadmap: https://trello.com/b/Ipc33X20/yet-another-zombie-survivors-roadmap

❗ ONE MORE THING!

Please keep all the discussion around the beta version here, DO NOT post bugs & suggestions related to it in #1072466220634361896 and #1029379853151109170. Thank you!

[spice prism]

I really like the change when choosing the mode and the map. It is way more user friendly now.

[cerulean cloud]

I think unlocking abilities on the Pyro is broken

It went from kill 77 zombies, to kill 180.

After I went in and killed over 100.

Actually, it says kill MINUS 180.

@deft tartan

[bright bay]

card +10% elemental damage does not update stats on mouse-over preview

[bright bay]

new achievements yet are not unlocking at steam.

[bright bay]

an option to hide items and abilities would be nice. looking at them does not provide any advantages anyway.

[bright bay]

SWAT's weapons are so much louder than the rest.

[woven sundial]

Barrel Roll gives +0.01s Invincibility time instead of the 1s the item says. (1 second is probably too long anyways, but 0.01 is defenitly too short to matter.)

[bright bay]

rework of armor and fatigue make it super easy now to reach minute 30 and go far beyond. during my first try I survived 52 minutes (endless mode, 1st map). while this is by design I guess, my problem is that such long runs are unnecessarily exhausting. OK for a special dungeon, but for regular money grinding or just for fun inbetween of something it's just too long now. (remember: your game demands 100% attention latest after the first 2 minutes, if not straight from the start.)

[spice prism]

They never made it so that the beta achievements are on Steam immediately, they only appear when the main branch is updated.

[bright bay]

Also in that 52 minutes run I managed to invest in only 7 weapons and abilities. which feels poor as in previous version I would have reached max level on all available abilities + 3 weapons around minute 30. the tiny boni on leveling up do not feel like compansation, more like a waste of my attention and time. you should rather put them as additional panel to pick one when a skill level up happens or just passively increase stats with each level up.

[fiery gorge]

100% such a good change

[fiery gorge]

It is about time they reworked armour though. Before it was utterly pointless.

[spice prism]

I've just finished my first run after the update. I managed to survive 62 minutes on endless mode on the first map.

My first impressions:

+I love all the UI updates and changes. Things look much slicker now. Those little buff icons over the squad are a really nice touch.
+Maybe it's just me but the performance seems to be much better? I started going below 30 frames at 45-50 minutes while it used to happen much earlier before.
+I haven't experienced any game breaking bugs.

As for the new progression system I have mixed feelings. Long story short: getting level ups isn't that exciting anymore. Although eventually all those +1% upgrades add up to really good numbers, the level up process kinda lost its charm. I am no longer asking myself: "oh, what cool upgrade will I be getting now?" and instead I'm only thinking "eh, am I going to get 1% into weapon damage or 1% into ability cooldown?"

While we are much, much stronger now by choosing all those +1% upgrades, the skill upgrades got hurt in the process. I did a 62 minute run and I only reached level 3 for one weapon. Got some abilities here and there but I felt like I was missing out on all those cool abilities and skills that our characters have. It’s scary to think that we don’t have access to the last tier upgrades and how deep they will be buried during the gameplay.

Honestly, I’d love if we were guaranteed to get ability upgrades while reacting to SOS signals to counter the boring +1%s

Armor rework - fantastic and it's finally worth investing points into it ❤️

Item rework for chests is really cool as well. I like how some of the upgrades are more utility than just stat upgrades.

The game feels much easier now but it was just one run, I'll have to do more though

[bright bay]

not sure about performance. monster density ramps much slower now. by the end of the run the frame rate went down a lot, but I did not pay attention whether FPS was higher than before.

[spice prism]

Now that you mention moster density, that could be it. It felt like there weren't as many enemies as before

[woven sundial]

you can spend a banish on a stat boost power-up but then have it show up again latter, why let me banish it if it doesn't do anything. (its probably best that it doesn't do anything so you can't banish everything but one stat to Guarantee it, but then why even give the option if it doesn't do anything.)

[fiery gorge]

One thing I will say as well, the change to the levelling system makes the XP Modifier options worth it now. Since you scan infinitly scale

Before you were basically guaranteed to max out anyway so they were pointless

Btw what does Fatigue do?

Not sure if it was new with this update or not as I have been travelling for four months lol

[woven sundial]

it increases the max damage limit that enemies can deal past 1000 damage (only increases after the 20 minute mark for endless or 10 minute mark for boss rush.)

there is a max limit to some stats, but the game doesn't tell you what it is, which is quite annoying when choosing which stat to gain during level up or items.

It would also be nice to know what my stats are before any temporary buffs (like from the more unique items, some stat base abilities, or power-ups.) especially when choosing stats from level ups or items.

[cerulean cloud]

If you're gonna put elemental damage in the game, and have it be a modifier...I think every character needs to have 1-2 elemental abilities then.

I'd like to see Arrow Rain do Chemical Damage, Grenade/Air Strike do Fire....and then maybe someone else can have a frost, maybe sawblades? Iced tipped blades.

[woven sundial]

I don't think swat should have elemental abilities, weapon based characters are the stronger option and I think there should be at least one non-elemental character.

I also don't think we need more fire abilities, we have a whole new character based entirely around fire / elemental damage and he already has a lot of good synergy.

We do need way more chemical abilities / weapons thou, instead of just one weapon path of medic and a few more frost ones (but maybe the last 2 characters are a Chemical Character and a Frost one?)

Bug: Med-kit increases move speed instead of decreases it.

Bug?: arrow rains yellow circle is affected by Ability Area, but the visual area of the arrows falling doesn't scale off of Ability area. (not sure if the lack of visual scaling affects the damage dealt.)

[spice prism]

"Item Chest Chest" increases dodge by 2% instead of 0,2% 😱

I already posted in-game report about it but yeah

Try it out while it lasts 😄

[woven sundial]

Why does this give 25% Chemical damage (and move speed) when you can unlock an item that only gives 20% chemical damage.

[cerulean cloud]

I still think we should see atleast 1 ability have elemental damage per character. I think it's odd to have "fire damage increase" powerups, but literally only 1 character has fire abilities. I'd rather see them either spread out some of the elemental abilities. Or just add items/powerups that give straight elemental damage increase, instead of specifically fire/ice/etc.

That way if I wanted to do say a "fire build". I can get Pyro, then 1-2 other characters who have at least 1 fire ability.

[spice prism]

Ok, I'm a true ninja now

Hm, despite having 100% dodge I still lost health to the big zombie's charge attack

That's a long way to say that it's 5% chance since it's 1/1.

[woven sundial]

Luck is too strong / scales too easily now, and is almost always the best option for level-ups (unless another stat has higher rarity)
It can give you Iron skin which basically makes you undamageable, has healing through healing orbs (which with pills can also be converted into damage.), moves-peed power-up, gives killing frenzy for a massive damage spike, and Magnetic for much easier leveling (which trivializes the Magnet range stat, thou it was never good anyways.)

I think luck needs to either be less per level or Iron Skin needs to be nerfed.

[spice prism]

Is camping set supposed to be stackable or not? I have it at 3/3 and it only provides 20% boost.

[woven sundial]

There are other items with the same secondary text, so maybe the stacking 5% means for each of those different items you have, instead of what the text actually says, which should be having multiple of the same item (that you can only have one of.)

[spice prism]

I got the "I am speed" achievement while standing still and at 130% Movement Speed. The description says it supposed to be 200%.

I managed to level up Pyro from 1st rank to the 3rd in one run. Achievement for the 2nd rank didn't unlock but I did get the one for rank 3.

[spice prism]

Thankfully, I was able to get this in a 2nd run

[wraith kernel]

Came here to say this, seems like weapons and abilities end way lower level than before. Not everyone enjoys playing hours of endless. having S.O.S guarantee major level ups would make it a lot more fun in my eyes.

I like the idea of minor and major level ups but I feel it doesn't fit well with the 3 character upgrades and abilities

Someone else mentioned here that it would be better as an additional choice on top of your major level up.

tone-down exp again and change the system to the above ^, after selecting a weapon/ability choice have it pop up a minor upgrade, I think i'd personally love that way more

[strong smelt]

apologies if this has been brought up already but I cant level up the new Pyro

I just did a isolated city endless, lasted around 33 mins and I knew i didnt get the pop up for the kills lol

[bright bay]

Tesla (tier 2 engineer) has half the DPS of Taser (tier 1 engineer). the increase in crowd control does not make up for the low damage.

another downside of new leveling: now we are focusing even more on leveling weapons primarily and buffing abilities secondarily. you could also remove the remaining skills now.

[bright bay]

Pills: add buff to UI above the squad

[bright bay]

can confirm bug: banisched powerups on levelup do reappear. doesn't make sense to have banish available on powerups anyway. else players will banish everything except legendary powerups -> sick imbalance.

[bright bay]

there's a massive ramp up on monster density and boss HP somewhere between minute 40 and minute 44. it feels like devs want me to die latest my minute 45 after petting me for 40 minutes.

[bright bay]

you might want to tweak the formula for required XP per level now that the benefits on levelup are mostly small. by the end of endless runs it takes minutes to get one, even if you have around 200% modifier.

highlight those stats that reched already their max possible value. e.g. weapon critical chance is capped at 100% and weapon cooldown reduction is capped at 95%. so we don't invest into them anymore.

2nd run endless mode: 80 minutes! way too long per session for this kind of game. will stick with hard mode and boss mode from now on.

leveling feels now like minmaxing from the beginning. the joy from the previous version is gone.

the pool of items is way too big. most feel like common powerups, but were promised to be big as compensation. and the ones you want barely appear, even after 60 minutes.

same for the achievements of the other characters.

the run lasted 1h 19m 47s

[bright bay]

movement speed bonus from 'no pain no gain' is not added to global stat.

Blowtorch is actually only a useful weapon if used with manual aim.

Healing Potion is a consumable, not an item.

[bright bay]

neither weapon cooldown reduction is added. also it is not just the stat, that does not change, the squad does not move faster and does not reload faster.

[dense coyote]

Hello! First of all - thank you all guys for such an amazing amount of quality feedback! Secondly, I'm getting a hotfix patch built now and will upload it soon. However it's mostly fixes so don't expect anything huge. 👀

Also, some thoughts from us, for you to see where it's more or less going.

1. We're still experimenting with minor/major level-ups. Based on what you reported to us we know we have to balance it a bit towards fun. We'll do our best to achieve that, we have some ideas in mind, but we have to get them implemented. :)
2. Skill tree will be reworked in 0.6.0.
3. There'll be a customizable pool for items (you'll be able to pick which ones will pop in the game, with some boundaries obviously). Also, ultimately we want items to evolve towards some custom behaviors instead of flat bonuses (they will transfer towards minor level-ups).
4. Abilities and weapons will get more elemental variations. Also, we want to achieve a balance between weapons and abilities, so rushing weapons won't be as obvious a choice as it is currently.
5. High priority towards a new map for the next patch, along with a new game mode.
6. Elite enemies. After recent changes, the damage output generally increased and we think that they would be a good place to counter it while adding something new to the game.
7. Some big optimizations are in the works, however, we're not sure when will they land in the game. We want to focus on quality content right now, as opposed to the internal systems reworks we did in this patch.

In the meantime, the studio will be closed during Holidays so expect to hear from us right afterwards. Have a great time you all. 🎅

[dense coyote]

Uh, about that - we now know we didn't describe it well enough. No Pain No Gain works as a scale - the less HP you have the bigger bonuses are. So +0% MS while on 100%HP, +25% MS while on 50%HP and ultimately +50% MS while o 0% HP. ;)

[dense coyote]

Just published the Hotfix 1 patch - you can check the changelog here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2163330/view/3868093247544648357

[bright bay]

3. excellent decision. customizing pools is something that convinces me to try a roguelite. usually I do not touch this genre due to its heavy RNG nature.
4. maybe you rethink also the current splitting into weapons and abilities in general. grenades, mines, molotov cocktails, kunais, shuriken and so on are weapons after all. and for weapons we are missing AOE and DOT stats as well. maybe 2 weapons per squad member make more sense, or 3 for leader, 2 for 2nd, 1 for last squad member. or a max number of weapons per squad. and let abilities be passives and buffs or even cosmetics.

[tepid hemlock]

Elites sound great! Enjoy your rest, guys/lads and thanks for the update.

[bright bay]

hardcore mode seems to be scaling just as it did before. latest after 5 minutes it does not feel like the walk in the park in endless mode.

wasn't hardcore mode endless before? now it ends successfully after 10 minutes. or did I mix it with boss rush in my head? I did not play this game for about a month, straight after fulfilling the last task/achievement.

[bright bay]

OK, hardcore and boss rush are still as hard as they were. GOOD! but with the new leveling system, they became even harder. maybe you want to tweak them a bit. otherwise I'm afraid new players could quit very quickly after getting in touch with these modes, now that default and endless modes are barely challenging.

linear XP multipliers seem to be obsolete with an exponential increase of XP required per level

absolutely not worth it unless you get it straight from the start on endless or boss rush

attack size on weapons is not unified. e.g. infernax swing with a much bigger radius than fireaxe, but has a lower value. at least visually it looks like that. can't say for sure since I use pyro only for unlocking his ranks and add with first SOS my favourite damage dealer.

also pyro weapons are crap. both fire spitters rely on watching the enemy melting, but it takes so long that you have a traffic jam all around you. and the spread is too much a straight line, so effectively these two weapons are not control the crowd. not at all. Only the fireaxe is neat, but only a starter weapon, if you start with pyro. although the huge delay between hits make the weapon uneffective once fast running mobs join the zombie forces. and this results in an even bigger traffic jam.
EDIT: infernax 2&3 is actually useful as long mobs are still weak in terms of HP.

[bright bay]

how does the burining damage from infernax scale?

BUG: critical protocol does not trigger. the screen filling animation does not happen (you can keep it like that though), no buff symbol appears above the squad, no cooldown animation on the left side of the screen were all unlocked weapons and skill are listed.

[spice prism]

Yo, such a quick hotfix?!

[bright bay]

isn't dodge obsolete, if you are invincible?

[spice prism]

Yesterday, when Dodge gains were bugged and I reached 100% the enemies still could hit me

So I assume some attacks can't be dodged?

[bright bay]

complete AOE info on each AOE skill

[bright bay]

hotfix notice says per 100HP

and you might want to change the wording from 'total' to 'max' or 'maximum' in order to avoid misunderstandings. this naming is kind of standardized nowadays, I guess.

[bright bay]

'glass cannon' is a neat idea, but works only for short regular runs and somewhat for endless mode, if you do not want to get deep or you are extraordinary good in evading. it is strong for one hit mode though. but then, the loss of armor and health do not matter. however, this item is far away from being a screen wiper or single target vaporizer, therefore doesn't deserve the name.

boss rush and harcore are still the fun modes. but I reached already 52 minutes, am still having sick DPS and 95% armor gives me only little scratches the few times I get hit every now and then. even when just stand around typing messages in here. also invincibility frames help a lot in filling up HP before the next hit.

now I reached 100% fatigue and still cannot die.

[bright bay]

turned off auto fire and still cannot die

alrighty, I killed the game client. but the talent points gained by collecting money seem to have been credited. at least something.

[uneven lion]

The Elemental changes have significantly boosted the engineer! I'm loving him. Chemical, Frost, and Fire are not quite there yet. I also am really liking the change to levels of skills from max of 5 to 3... but the minor level upgrades seems too many in between the major ones... It takes a lot longer to hit a 3rd tier of a weapon than before. I don't hate the new leveling system, but I feel like there's not enough major levels occurring

[spice prism]

Done

I'm not sure but I think "Fire Walk With Me" achievement isn't cumulative as opposed to the description

Pyro is 🔥 🔥 🔥

Both of his tier 3 weapons are really good. My only gripe is that the flamethrower could have more visual "oomph". His tier 3 melee has a great visual effect that amplifies the feeling of it being really strong.

Even if it was just a visual change and not necessarily stats-wise, I wish flamethrower's cone of fire was bigger. I don't know how it would impact performance though

[bright bay]

Seems like you are using comma as decimal point. For English localization it is the name giving decimal point though. And cut off the decimal places, they are just unneccessary and misleading.

[proper badger]

Damn, this 0.50 update and its nightly hot-fix really make the game (MUCH) better. Where to start?

• Late-game is now almost witouth limits, which differs from the glass ceiling you reached especially for the Survivor once you reached level 92;
• Pyro is great;
• New leveling system with its sets of new stats is GREAT, you level-up regularly, in a somewhat linear fashion like your enemies;
• Elemental perks are great and fun, although it benefits to some teammates more than others (Engineer/electricity; Pyro/Fire are awesome in combination). It makes some without elemental weapons or abilities less interesting. One thing though: the weapon/ability icons do not specifiy which elemental it relates too (if applicable), although this information is present in the recap tab post-battle. Best to add this during the game;
• Jewel of life/Jewel of death is nice, gives you one additional life basically, while shortening your second life at a heavy cost on HP pool: great and balanced;
• upgrades scarcity (from common to legendary) is great;
• Endless combination of stats/elemental upgrades, including trade-offs (say +20% ice dmg/-25% fire dmg, ...);
• A lot of new bugs, although a lot were fixed in the hot-fix (Jewel of life not functioning properly, glass cannon decreasing by 1hp, ...). None of the remaining bugs I found are game-breaking;
• Sure, games last longer in endless modes, but I won't complain. If I want a short game, I'll switch to time-limited modes;
• The new UI system to select teammate -> map -> mode is great and better, as the previous one could make you launch a game just by clicking once;
• I really notice game optimization, as I had lags on either late-game or when displaying any app on my second monitor prior to v0.50.

So far, so good. Did I say that this update is really good?

[bright bay]

yes, you did sir. you are a jolly kind, aren't you?

no idea where these strange numbers came from. shot when life was 100% full, so 'no pain no gain' is not the scource. (btw 'no pain no gain' is a terrible movie.)

[fiery gorge]

I wonder if it would work better with the level ups if you always got weapons/skills and then once you maxed everything that is when you got offered the stat upgrades. A bit like it used to be with the Health/Cash ones. Maybe that would feel better for people so they could work on the skills or weapons they wanted early. At the moment if there is a particular skill or weapon you want to max it feels really bad picking up new survivors because it dilutes the pool even more and then you don't even get to pick one every level up.

[bright bay]

small personal sum up from last night:

• the combination of 95% armor and invincibility frames is evil. it makes you immortal. Personally I would remove invincibility from the game, it just doesn't fit the genre imo.
• I still don't understand why fatigue is neccessary. monster damage should ramp up with threatening level to the extent that at some point a boss can one-shot you and somewhat later the weakest mob can one-shot you.

[proper badger]

Well, that's the thing. Prior to 0.50, you really wanted Survivor to give you weapon/ability upgrade. But now, it is no longer required. I typically have most teammates without their top weapon until level 100-140, and I'm just fine. Sure, these upgrades are "diluted" with stats/elemental upgrades, but it is no longer required to get your squad full kited to get to high-levels.

[proper badger]

Yup, totally with you on these two.

[fiery gorge]

Yeah maybe. I need to play more I think to really solidify my thoughts on it. I think a new player would have a different feeling compared to an older player too, since I am so used to the old system it might just be that I need to let that idea go

[proper badger]

But fatigue currently is required on endless mode for 1000+ dmg, to see the upper value of dmg mobs can inflict.

[bright bay]

nope, you shouldn't. it is something that attracted you to buy this game and even more one of the spices that made you addicted to it.

[proper badger]

I had the same "fear" as you for the first 2-3 games, and then I realized you can be perfectly fine just waiting for these specific upgrades to pop-up, whenever they pop-up.

[bright bay]

elemental bonus is not applied to skills on stats screen.

some weapons are missing the attack speed stat, e.g. syringe and fireaxe.

It is unknown wether DOTs can crit.

It is unkown how many DOTs can be applied at the same time. (of the same and/or of a different type)

such a waste of your valuable time.

[pseudo turret]

Hello there! Sorry but which hero is the most effective elemental damager? I want to open flamethrower and need some elemental damage to deal

[pseudo turret]

Is that a flamethrower??? Well you know it is a kind a flamnesucker? Where is the real fire? Why tank has a HOLYFUCK MINIGUN FROM Fallout 4, while flamethrower has just a blowtorch from grandma garage? Such a disappoitment...

[bright bay]

actually, the tank is the right character for a gatling. these things are heavy and therefore usually mounted on vehicles or building. so carrying it into battles makes you slow and therefore an easy target. full body armor is a must in this case. but well, devs didn't add a movement speed debuff to this weapon.

[pseudo turret]

I mean that even third weapon (flamethrower) has less damage than medic, Very poor survivor at this moment,

[shut rock]

Loving the update so far! Great update choices. The only downside being that at one point I was surprised that I didn't even have 20 minutes ingame time ... due to the number of choices making the play session longer. But I'm fine with that. 😄

I just love the idea of cranking certain aspects to check which gives the best rewards. Like increasing ability area and damage above all else. I also think the choice of wording is perfect, a "cooldown" is more universal than reload. And the fact that all stats are now upward oriented - more is better. That makes it easier to grok the stats. And I'm hoping that 100% really is the end - after all what would be the meaning of a 120% critical hit chance? I will try and get there in the next play sessions.

The one BUG - the only one I encountered besides "-16000 more zombies to kill" - is the green Jewel of Life (Death?). Twice it happened to me that it printed in big letters REVIVED but my team actually died anyway. The first time it was odd in so far that my team still moved a few steps (maybe 2-3 meters in game scale) while the game animated the game-over transition.
I will definitely try this jewel again but so far it hasn't worked for me. Both times I did NOT have the Medic in my team, so I did not confuse it with the Medic's revive skill.

[proper badger]

Jewel of Life / Jewel of Death was bugged, later fixed in the nightly hot-fix. Just check if you have the latest version (B.0.5.0_beta2). Regarding Jewel of life, as I described it earlier :"Jewel of life/Jewel of death is nice, gives you one additional life basically, while shortening your second life at a heavy cost on HP pool (-50% max hp pool): great and balanced". Make your own mind, but it a must have imho.

[shut rock]

yup jewel of life works now

BUG: when chosing powerup with gamepad, select lockdown and select a powerup, then press the B (cancel) button. Cursor is gone, selection (at least during this powerup) is no longer possible with the gamepad. Mouse still works.

[fiery gorge]

Yeah it feels bad to have your HP halved, but the alternative is death so I feel like it's better than nothing lol

[radiant star]

Due to massive reduced ability cooldown the Engineer is very difficult to play visually.

after a while all you can see is blue

the hostages for example are impossible to discern, you have to guess-triangulate them by the green arrows

[wraith kernel]

need an ability transparency slider

like other bullet heavens

[shut rock]

readability of damage stats should be improved
123456789 just doesn't read well
123M and 456K would be an improvement

[radiant star]

It would also be nice to see the elemental damage split by type (x fire damage, y electrical damage etc)

[spice prism]

95% Armour, 46% dodge, 100% fatigue and I was still killing zombies very efficiently (until I chose minigun for tank). The game went into powerpoint mode - 10FPS.

The minor level up is growing on me but I still wish we could choose major upgrades more often

Balancing this out is going to be really tough

[shut rock]

weird BUG: I was playing endless with engineer, pyro and huntress. I'm pretty sure I had the jewel of life. About 45 minutes in, this "arrow-runner" boss hit me. I got killed but wait ... it actually printed "victory" (or something to that effect) on the screen. Indeed, when in the menu I have "victories = 1" listed for this mode on the first map. I thought one couldn't actually win endless mode. Or can we?

Oh and ... I had this "hacker chip" powerup that adjusted my weapon cooldown and attack speed I think, 1s for every critical hit. Just in case this opens up some other "desirable bugs" such as winning endless mode when you die. Is that a thing? 🙂

If not: it should be. 😉

[spice prism]

There are achievements for reaching 20 and 30 minutes in endless so my guess is reaching either of these is considered a "win"

[bright bay]

either way, the victory counter does not make sense for endless mode, boss rush and the map itself. Is this some rudiment from earlier version without endless run modes?

[fiery gorge]

When you die on Endless now it says something like "You succeeded" or whatever. Also, the Jewel of Life was bugged but should be fixed with the hotpatch the other day

[shut rock]

Money Collected and Training Points are missing strings in the endgame screen.

<insert inspiration quote here> (not sure if intentional)

also noteworthy: i died on a chest just as it opened, so i got the skill selection menu but the "you succeeded" message and game over screen came shortly thereafter while the selection menu was shown.
either the screen opens and i take damage and die right afterwards, or i die and the selection screen doesn't open. both at the same time: not good.

[radiant star]

this iteration definitely needs rebalancing

if you get a lot of armor (easy to do) and some life steal you become immortal, can leave the computer on and perform some chores around the house

I don't want to do chores

nerf something!

[deft tartan]

Hey @everyone! Thank you so much for your feedback, reports and suggestions so far!

We continue to tweak things around, and within the next two days, we'll update the beta branch with another hotfix, fixing the reported issues and wrong numbers being displayed or counted. This also consists of things like tweaks for Endless & a new option for HUD icons transparency.

After fixing some critical bugs and “band-aiding” the balance we want to focus on bringing back fun for these of us who think that things were better as they were before.

Some of the things we're considering right now:

• Slowing down leveling a bit but returning level-ups to their previous "ability & weapon upgrades only" shape.
• Keeping minor (stat/passive) level-ups, but moving these to a different in-game event (radio support/shop), where you would be able to trade yet unspecified per-run gathered points for them.
• Adding some not yet precised minor balance & fun changes (like giving pyro blowtorch & flamethrower better feel).

Let us know what you think about these and stay awesome 🤟

[wraith kernel]

Option 2 sounds nice

[fiery gorge]

On the topic of Armour, I think you should try capping it at 90% instead of 95% and seeing how that goes

at 95% I was unable to die, I took something that took me down to 88% and I died within a few minutes of me trying not to die (this was past 1 hour on Endless)

I do like the minor level ups though - but I preferred being able to max out my skills and weapons more. So I think I would like the second option you mentioned. Personally

Or moving them to the end of the skill tree. So once you max all your skills and weapons, you then get stat upgrades

I definitely agree about Pyro though, he felt a bit underwhelming. I really liked the character design though

[deft tartan]

Yes, we'll be adding and tweaking current stat clamps where they are needed. We'll most likely cap Armor even lower, as we agree it's a bit OP as it stands now.
Keep in mind that stat caps will be tweaked/balanced with updates (skill-tree upgrades potentially?), so no current stat changes should be considered as final.

[dull marten]

I'm enjoying the new system overall, more control over my build through minor stat upgrades. Someone mentioned luck being OP and I am inclined to agree - I thought it would be like exp up, giving up short term gains for long term growth, except just more versatile and plain better, in my experience.

Regarding the weapon ability balance, for me the reason why weapons are a no-brainer is simply because the abilities are just weak and unreliable in early game. I always thought this was part of the design. Weapons having low CD and more dmg, while abilities have more utility and AOE, making them far more useful later in the run than earlier, compared to weapons.

I don't understand point of the elemental damage change, if there was one extra type then fine but four? And so many new elemental items cluttering up the pool. If you must keep them then I'd rather have an option to "sell" the item for a generic stat boost or something.

[wraith kernel]

you have banish for a reason

• this is only the first update to introduce elemental, future updates plan to expand on it

[dull marten]

Yeah I played a bit more and seems I do have enough banishes to deal with everything I don't want so far

Also yes I hope there's more to the elemental system, what I said earlier is just how it feels atm, thanks though

[bright bay]

Moving stats upgrades to radio drops could be working. I would have tried halfing the stats upgrades, but doubling their value maybe. But since you are planning to revamp abilities and weapons significantly, it is hard to give advice beyong the current state.

[bright bay]

Like stated somewhere above I'd prefer nerfing invulnarability frames (e.g. shortening and/or adding a cooldown) and revamping monster damage scaling with threatening level instead of fatigue.

[dense coyote]

Hello everyone! I just wanted to let you know that we rolled out a yet another beta patch (codename: 🩹 "band-aid"). Changes are more or less as follows:

- Introduced stat clamp mechanic (which will be further improved and balanced throughout the game updates).
- “Stimpack“ now works as described.
- “Protocol: Critical“ no longer shows duration stat, since it's now a passive ability.
- “Fury Unleashed“ now displays correct values.
- Ghost's 3rd tier weapons were slightly buffed.
- Achievement panel now displays correctly on widescreen resolutions.
- To complement the Armor rework, Fatigue debuff now increases maximum damage received up to 10,000, from 5,000.
- Added HUD transparency (item & skill icons) to accessibility options.
- “Om nom nom“ achievement once again correctly calculates zombies eaten by the Desert Worm.
- Dodge now works correctly.
- “Apple“ now correctly adds value on pick up.
- The interface no longer freezes when the player obtains all available items.
- Large numbers now show spaces as separators (so 12 734 125 instead of 12734125).
- Fixed some SFXs (hello, SWATs turret).
- “Laser”, “Blowtorch“ and “Flamethrower“ weapons now deal continuous damage (along with “set on fire” damage for the latter two).

Please do consider this kind of a "temporary" state since we're internally discussing some changes that will heavily impact the current beta balance. Our ultimate goal here is to get a feel of fun while keeping the doors open for some interesting builds. For what's more or less coming - we plan on a minor rework to the level up system. That is returning level-ups to the weapons/abilities only shape while moving stat level-ups to some additional in-game event. We'll implement it, play it, see if it's fun, balance it out, and republish on beta again.

Also, I'd like to thank you for your patience. We know it takes long, and we too want to speed things up but we definitely do not want to lose the fun in the game and that whole thing is quite a process. ;)

[fiery gorge]

Does Apple give +100 max HP or just heal HP?

[empty gull]

Okay, feedback.
Bug: 3rd Blaster upgrade decreases damage instead of increasing.
Probably bug: Ability "No pain no gain" works with full health sometimes
Suggest: item "Ring of power" most valuable item in the game, but only if you get it first 10 minutes. after that his valuable drops significantly. There is big difference if you found this item from start or first time see it on 59th minutes. Probable should be reworked, for example it will also give damage for each sos signal picked before item. Same with item "Item Chest Chest", but his value much less.
Armor: silent capped at 75%? oh, my boys. So if you have capped stat, it shouldn't appear with lvlup. right now I picked armor twice before noticed it's capped xdd.
Unclear: is elemental damage works on weapon? weapon tooltip changes from weapon damage percentages only (should I turn on damage numbers to chect it?)
Banishes: well, 6 from start is not enough. not enough at all. in my current run I picked Ban Hammer 4 times, so I have 12 banishes overall, and it's not enough still. There are a lot of items, and a lot of items will come next patches (is it? )). Is there point to increase item choices from 3 to 4? And increase banishes number from Ban Hammer from 2 to 3?
Suggest: items "Wrench" and "Axe" looks pointless to pick. They good only for achivements - 20 mins without abilities/weapons. Probably should be reworked, for example Wrench could decrease wpd not for 10%, but 5%, at least
Level up system: overall okey, but probably should be 1-1: stat choice, skill choice, not 2-1 as now. So you can skill up all your skill faster.

Anyway, patch 0.5 is a fresh air. Keep up good work!

[wraith kernel]

on the topic of the change with minor level ups, if main levelups are made to only include weapons and abilities again it could be interesting to see minor level ups appear after you own everything in endless instead or as well as money/health

[shut rock]

Something I've noticed early on and just verified specifically: some character cannot hit enemies close by, most notably Swat and Tank but also Medic and Ghost seem to be affected. The projectile spawn position is too far in the forward direction to hit the enemies close-by. I confirmed this by playing wasteland-endless with each character with one restriction: don't move. They all die in about a minute, except of course the engineer but even for him it's game over after 2:20-ish (smashed by hammer force).

Also notable: the GUI still mentions "reload" in many places rather than cooldown.

[brisk harness]

Hi,
I love your game, it's really cool 🙂
But I'm not convinced by the new leveling system because I don't understand when I pass a minor level or a major level, this is always a surprise,
and I think there is a lot of stat modifier compared to the abilities and weapons while what I love about this game are the abilities and the weapons 😉
For this two reasons the beta il a little less fun as the precedent version.
All the rest of the beta is very cool, especially the new interfaces.
For me the game difficulty is the same as the precedent version.
Thank for all !
(excuse my english)

[placid tendon]

Nice UI upgrades.
The stats upgrades by themselves feel booring though. They should have either stats up vs. down upgrades, or they should come with a bonus when reaching a certain level. Also not sure if they are survior based: your surviors should increase certain starts upgrades or rarities, or maybe get some special stat interaction upgrades ( 1% on damage for each x movement)

[bright bay]

BUG: Protocol: Critical is not applying its values to stats.

[bright bay]

weapon cooldown reduction cap was also lowered from 95% to 75%. dear devs, let us know about such changes.

huntress' explosive arrow seems to deal tons of damage, but the skill description is missing info on explosion splash damage, area and delay.
tank's rocket launcher seems to have no impact damage, but only explosion splash damage and absolutely sucks compared to explosive arrow, which on top can also pierce.
imbalanced AF.

well, not as prominent as I was expecting it, but at least the caps are provided now.

why only 75% ability crit chance?

[dense coyote]

hmm, could you write more about when it happened? I've just checked it and looks like it should work (it actually didn't highlight the values on highlight but still increased them after pickup)

yes, the caps are displayed in popups and are kind of work in progress - we'll find a better working solution for this while having stat powerups changed

explosive arrows are indeed a bit op compared to rocket launcher which is underpowered on other hand, we plan on going through a proper balancing of all weapons since it got a bit distorted on recent patch

ability chance 75% cap was put there by mistake, sorry about that, this along with few other hotfixes will go live on Tuesday

few days afterwards I plan on releasing a 'stat powerups' patch with another iteration, kind of better working this time

[bright bay]

it did not highlight the values and when I pressed ESC straight after picking it, the numbers were still the same.

did you change something about monster spawn rate? boss rush is insane after minute 45 or 50.

[bright bay]

Ok, died after an hour of boss rush. but it was not due to armor nerf & increased fatigue, but the sick density of monsters since there was often no place to run but through a too narrow gap between bosses. I did not use any screen wiping skill this time, maybe this is why density felt so massive. However, we are definitely not immortal anymore. As a quick solution the changes do as intended. Still not a fan of fatigue, it is like healing a compound fracture with a band-aid.
Also I am not totally sure, but I think it happens many times that I received several hits in a row, although I had 2 seconds invincibility frames.

[deft tartan]

Apple increases Health Regeneration. The more, the more max health you have 🍎

[deft tartan]

This is exactly what we're considering ✌️

[deft tartan]

Both are somewhat "by design". Also, "Don't hug me I'm scared" achievement was designed around it. "Don't move from start to end" challenges might prove difficult for now, as the game wasn't designed this way (item chests, SOS signals, etc.), but we'll see how we can support it better in the future. If the Weapon cooldown is referred to as reload in the weapon popup information, I believe it's fine - there are multiple description elements that aren't 1:1 stat names already (weapon range, projectile amount, damage over time, etc.)

[fiery gorge]

Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong one then. There's an item you can pick that gives +100 HP. But it's unclear if it heals or increases your max hp. It's a 0/3 item. I picked it at 1900HP once while at full hp and it did nothing, leading me to believe it only healed you. But that would be an utterly terrible item so I thought it might just be broke and it was meant to increase my max hp and didn't

[deft tartan]

I believe we didn't, but we'll be keeping an eye on this as well. We have plans to change how Boss Rush mode works, but this is something we'll work on in a future update. The Fatigue system is currently a must, because of the existance of a 1000 damage cap. Even if we've nerfed all the survivability stats and/or buffed the horde, it would create problems for all game modes in the forms of stats being too weak, horde being too strong, and players finding ways to survive any incoming threats indefinitely either way. Fatigue serves the purpose of an universal fix for this issue, while remaining fair to the player & not reducing their combat strength in any way.

[deft tartan]

You're most likely thinking about the Health Potion. It regenerates your current HP fully. It's a free get-out-of-jail card (and strongest heal in the game currently) when you find it in an item chest while being low on HP (and maybe even with a boss attack coming your way). We've changed the description in the newest hotfix to "Current health +100%", but if you have an idea on how to present it in a better way, please feel free to share ✌️

[fiery gorge]

Ah fair enough, no that's fine. It said "Health +100" when I used it, but the change you just mentioned makes it super clear what it does

[spice prism]

Can we please have the option to see the stats descriptions and stats thresholds on the minor level up screen?

The popup for stats appears on the major level up but is not available on the minor level up screen

[deft tartan]

@spice prism Yes, this seems to be a bug. We'll fix that

[fiery gorge]

I think the key part as well though is being able to see the thresholds for the stats too. I know Armour caps at 95% but I wouldn't have a clue about any other stat caps. If there even are any?

[wraith kernel]

i think the only stats that need capping are reload speed, armour and dodge right?

[spice prism]

The tooltip for the stat you highlight has that information already below the description

It's just that we are currently unable to see the tooltip on the minor level up screen

[valid creek]

I just finished a game of around 2 hours in boss rush on the desert map. I must say I feeled no challenge from start to end with pyro, tank and ghost.
At a certain point I didn't even saw my life going down anymore. So I made a try and stoped moving.
Even with many boss + the big worm on me I took 0 damage. I even go take a shower and came back. I don't know if it was a bug or if it is intended. And it seemed I was at max fatigue.

But even without that potential bug I feel like the game is to easy even in the mode which are suppose to be challenging.
Since the rework, and after I would say 6ish game I always end the game by letting me die.

Don't misunderstand me ! I love the changes on many point ! And I love the new perso. But I wish It would be harder or that I could upgrade manually the difficulty.

[spice prism]

I'm not seeing the changes to the spaces between big numbers (post-game summary)

[bright bay]

indeed, now that you mention it. but since total damage per run is meaningless...I can still read 5 digit DPS per skill very well without separetors.

[fiery gorge]

I was not aware of this, thanks!

[fathom laurel]

i encountered a bug earlier, i was pretty late game on endless, with very high ability cool down stats, anyways i decided to purchase the air strike for the tank, and the lvl 1 air strike cool down was around 5 sec, anyways after i upgraded it to level 2, it increased to around 15 cool down, isn't that a bug?

[royal briar]

Armor finally feels relevant, it's nice. However I'm not a fan about how those two stats become more valuable the more you have them, as well as the current 75% cap on both of them.

I am an avid LoL player, and I always loved how Armor and Magic Resist worked in it. Implementing an equivalent solution in YAZS would mean no armor point is ever wasted, while maintaining their value throughout the progression.

As well, applying e similar solution to cooldown reduction could be interesting.

For those wondering what I'm talking about, Armor in Lol is calculated as such:

This ensure that 1 point of Armor always gives you +1% of effective resistance

put simply, it's a soft cap. The first few Armor point will give you more absolute % damage mitigation than the later one, but you'll still ger roughly as much effective resistance out of the same point.

(oh, and the formula they use is the same as above, simply solved like this:)

[spice prism]

Do I understand it correctly? What you're proposing is that we can keep increasing armour indefinitely but after a certain point the points invested into it will be less and less effective?

[spice prism]

If that's the case, then I would be opposed to the idea. "Soft caps" just make me feel like I'm "wasting" points after spending them after reaching the most effective stats point

But that's just me

[ionic slate]

I also find this one really confusing. Even after the change. I think it would be a lot more clear if it just said: Heal for 100 % Health

[proper jungle]

i've just played with Pyro for 2 times the total of 60 minutes gaming... it rocks, but, it needs an urgent buff and true acumulating damage (to look as fire damage) and a bit more of an larger area damage (since fire usually spreads). Also, felt a lack of control of the weapon/skills upgrades. If there was another map item for them (like the box or survivor map itens) it would help more to know when it would come and where go first to upgrade something than the other. Now, the UI looks way cooler than before and loved the new "ability area" increase. Just still think that the first map (city) could have more normal zombies spawn points and frequency.

[royal briar]

yes, that's the case, albeit you could use a less 'punitive' formula, since value under 75% flat damage reduction aren't a problem. Basically, above that ceiling, each new point of armor is way too powerful compared to anything you received before. Heck, you could even use a formula that doesn't do anything until you hit that 75% cap, and then lets you stack more armor, but at a more and more punitive ratio, to avoid wasting armor points.

that would actually work better in this case, since the formula I proposed is geared toward multiplayer, while YAZS is a solo game and, as such, needs to be balanced differently

[woven sundial]

Pyro's Firewalk and Molotov are weak. In comparison to Engineer's similar abilities (Energy Turret and Energy Shield) they have too high of cooldown with too low of duration, and maybe slightly better damage (because of flame's DoT) but works in a very small area and does not scale with the area stat.

I think Molotov needs to scale with the area stat and either needs a bigger area or a better Cooldown / duration ratio (so its easier to get more then one.)
Firewalk either needs much higher damage to compensate for its bad cooldown / duration ratio and low AOE or just better cooldown / duration ratio so its more doable to have it always active (like you can with Energy Shield.)

The taunt ability is probably also weak since its not Fire damage and the new level / item system causes you to generally have much more damage and tankiness / healing that you don't need a Taunt ability, and thus would be better off with an easily spamable damaging ability (though this applies to every taunt ability and may be needed for one-hit mode, which I don't play.)

[spice prism]

The issue I have with soft caps is that it's not really worth investing past the soft cap because you know how ineffective the ratio of cost vs actual gain usually is. This is what I mean that the upgrade points are "wasted"

Let's say a single level up would upgrade DR from 75% to 75.2%
Knowing that 1 level up used to give me 1% and now it gives less, I would be thinking that I'm "wasting" my points. I'd be better off using that one level up for something more efficient

To me, soft caps would make more sense for the persistent skill tree

Reaching a certain threshold would be the "main reward" while leveling up above that would be just an extra to give more replayability and the carrot-on-a-stick system for players to pursue

[deft tartan]

Hey @everyone, thank you for your continued feedback. As promised, we've been tweaking things based on your suggestion and have just updated the beta branch with Hotfix 3, consisting of:

• Core leveling system returned to its pre-0.5 shape, but now always offering 4 options instead of 3.
• Enemies can now drop a new power-up type, that grants passive upgrades (AKA minor level-ups) when a separate bar is filled.
• Minor level-up options are now also available when the weapon/ability upgrade pool runs dry.
• Weapons and abilities now have 4 levels, instead of 3 (or 5).
• Item chests now always offer 4 options, instead of 3.
• Most weapons were tuned down to a form similar to their 0.4.2 counterparts.
• Items: Barrel Roll, Power Glove and T-Pose Doll reworked so that they offer different bonuses than invincibility frames.
• "Beeping sounds" removed from the first level's music track.
• Lots of new sound effects (please share your feedback on these).
• Lots of other bugfixes, refractions, and number tweaks.

[cerulean cloud]

I loved the minor level ups, and glad to see they havent fully disappeared. Looking forward to trying this out.

Any word on updating blowtorch or Flamethrower? I thought I read they might be getting an update to provide better continuous damage.

[deft tartan]

These two should be better now (counted these as "number tweaks"), but we'll keep on tweaking until they feel right, so do keep the feedback coming 🤟

[cerulean cloud]

Awesome, thanks!

[fiery gorge]

@deft tartan Quick question and quick feedback:
Question: Is there a button to auto select the fourth option? So when it was just three upgrade options for each level/item box we could use X. Y, and B on Steam Deck to select one. However, with the four options we can still use those three, but I was wondering if there was a fourth button that selects the last option?

Feedback on hotfix 3: When picking up a passive upgrade (previous minor level-ups) it doesn't give any indication of what it actually does. I feel like instead of giving the name of the stat boost it would be better to just show the stat and increase value.

Okay never mind actually on my feedback. I just collected some more and it looks like you need to collect four of them to unlock the option to choose a perk?

It isn't super clear. Personally I think if that is the way it works I would rather have it take four times as long for the drop to appear but you only have to collect one.

[deft tartan]

You can freely bind the fourth option to any button in "Remap controls" option.
TBH we didn't have a good idea of what to bind it to, so we've left it as it is, but if you have a suggestion, please let us know.
Alternatively, A could be the default, first option, with the other 3 buttons pointing to the first, second and third options respectively

[fiery gorge]

I think for the default options it is definitely better to keep A as it currently is to select whatever you have highlighted just as to not cause confusion. I suppose potentially the fourth option could be bound to Right Bumper/Trigger

It isn't super important though, just thought I'd ask

[deft tartan]

Yes, you can see its own progress bar under the experience bar

[fiery gorge]

Are you able to confirm two things for me, the drops for the stat boosts, can they been seen when off screen (like how the Vac and Health have little coloured blobs on the side of the screen to show they are there), and does the Vacuum bring them to you along with the money and exp drops?

Okay, I think I just confirmed for myself that neither are true. I think it would help if they did work like that though, at the very least for them to show up as gold/yellow blobs when off screen like the health packs and vacuums do.

[deft tartan]

Yes, both are false. They currently work the same as the white powerups and also disappear over time. Don't worry though, as they're work in progress, and we'll be sure to modify them to be both balanced and fun as we collect players' feedback on how they feel about this addition 🤟

[fiery gorge]

I definitely think they should show as little blobs to make it easier to see they have dropped. I have picked up a load so far on this run that were flashing about to disappear because I just didn't know they dropped.

I love the change to include the stat boosts in this form instead of as the minor level ups though. Definite improvement in my eyes

[empty gull]

I think Magnet should work on new powerup. it's unnecessary to show it like healthpacks

[fiery gorge]

To be honest if they just didn't despawn I would be happy. It just feels bad to miss them because it isn't obvious when they drop

[empty gull]

Yes, it's unclear are they despawn like exp gems or not

[fiery gorge]

They do despawn, I have seen it happen 😦

Plus Kala confirmed it before

[wraith kernel]

exp makes sense but idk about upgrades, do S.o.s and item chests despawn?

[cerulean cloud]

No. Item chests can actually stack...so multiple can show up. SoS stays on the map until you get it.

[wraith kernel]

so yeah i think it makes more sense for upgrades to not despawn, they feel more like s.o.s and chests than magnet, shield and hp

[cerulean cloud]

Agreed

[radiant star]

is the damage counter a bit off?
or perhaps only for some weapons?
I am playing Tank with rockets and it seems to not incur as much damage as it should

the damage for the rocket launcher is stated to be around 500 at this point

and there's (almost) nothing on that range on the screen

[dense coyote]

^could be a case where pool for damage numbers was exceeded and damage numbers don't spawn then. I've just checked the damage for rocket launcher and it scales properly. Also I've added a functionality that stops displaying lower damage when there's already lots of them visible to prioritize the big ones.

Nevertheless - damage is applied anyway. :)

[spice prism]

I think I preferred when there were more damage numbers on the screen, it did good things to my monkey brain

Now I kinda think my characters are missing their shots

If this is a simple matter of changing one value, perhaps there could be an option for the player to choose if they want a number-apocalypse or a more limited experience

Because if someone has performance problems, they probably turn off the damage numbers altogether

[dense coyote]

Ah, the change hasn't been pushed yet :)

The pool is there by default anyway since the very beginning I think; it's just the case that when we introduced the Pyro it became a way more crowded since lot's of high damage sources are over time so it keeps spamming the pool with lower numbers

[spice prism]

I'm doing a boss rush now and it again feels like WE are trying to survive, not the zombies 😄

As in, it's noticeably harder now without the constant minor level ups

[dense coyote]

Very happy to hear that :) We were truly surprised how overpowered they ended in previous state

[radiant star]

Hence the name of the game 🙂

But yes, boss runs are feeling much harder

Not enough life steal, not enough damage (esp crits), too few "badges"

[spice prism]

Yeah, I died at around 35 minute mark as opposed to just quitting at 1h

I would have tried to go longer but at that point I was rocking 640x480 in a window mode to save FPS 🤣

I died immediately after hearing the revive sound but since the window was so small I couldn't really tell what happened

Also, I'm not sure if it used to be like that but the skinny fast boys sometimes get such a boost of speed that it's impossible to outrun them in 1 hit mode

Even as early as 20 seconds in

I just don't remember if they behaved like this, was a while since I played this mode

[deft tartan]

Thank you @everyone & sorry for another ping! We'll keep on tweaking the numbers into the future, but as we get close to a full 0.5 release, we've pushed yet another set of improvements with the HOTFIX 4:

• Military Training points spawn a bit more often.
• Military Training pick-ups no longer despawn and have a “blob” indicator enabled.
• Military Training’s amount needed to level-up is now displayed under its new progress bar.
• Military Training level-up now offers 4 options, instead of 3.
• Statistics are now correctly shown when hovering the cursor over them on the Military Training level-up screen.
• Shotgun damage slightly lowered and it’s reload time increased by 0.25s.
• Added “Toggle Auto Fire” to binding options (default: F/Left Stick Button).
• New level-up description system implemented (“Current >> New” instead of “New (+changed by)”).
• Fixed descriptions for some items that were incorrectly displaying substracting stat while in reality they increased it.
• Improved default controller binding to better take 4 options in selection interfaces into consideration.

[fiery gorge]

Man, that is such a quick turn around on the blobs, very impressive! Love that you used my stupid explanation for it too 😄

[spice prism]

I like how we are getting stat upgrades after getting all skills

Feels like a reward for "beating" the game

[proper jungle]

Things to add after playing it these days (including today):

• The code clean up really made the game lighter! My CPU runs at lower temps than before (usually reaching 62~70 oC. Now 49~64 oC). i9 13th gen mobile.
• Graphics are way less grainy now. Looks smoother and still sharp as ever.
• The pyro still weak... have to make extra efforts to solo in normal on the city map. Flamethrower should get a wider area spread as well and the fire damage should stack it and get more damage bonus quicker and also fire should spread through groups of zombies.
• Molotov grenade is way too weak. Big cooldown time, small area of damage, low damage... even maxed out and having fire powerups, everything was weak. It would at least improve that and make it throw more bottles.
• Blowtorch kinda handle things adequately... but still, it feels a downgrade from the axe
• The axe should decrease the area of damage... it feels like a drag to go through any weapon upgrade after the axe
• The Military Training item made the game dynamic and a bit faster to upgrade the characters. THIS IS GREAT! That feeling of the game dragging too much to upgrade has gone for me and still endures enough for an endless mode playthrough
• Pyro could have an flamethrower/grenade launcher turret instead that time bomb... this class felt VERY underwhelming in comparison to most of the others.
• It might feel like a nitpick, but after focusing on everything on the game, when any upgrade menu comes up sometimes I have to "find" where my option is highlighted (I play with a controller). I rather keep the buttons as much as clean so I rather use the directional to choose the upgrade... just having difficulties to find often. Need a better highlight on where I am on the upgrades menu (the ingame one)

[fiery gorge]

A cool skill for the Pyro could a be napalm strike or something. A bit similar to the SWAT Helicopter but it would do less initial damage, and do DOT and could even potentially leave a patch of fire on the floor for a few seconds to allow zombies that walk in the area after the initial strike to catch fire.

[royal briar]

give an evolution for an item for the first time, and let us turn the napalm bottle into a napalm strike? idk, would feel better

beside the Tier 3 axe, the pyro does feel a bit... meh? I'm deeply unconvinced by is passive bonus that gives you bonuses the closer you are to death, but then again I tend to play in endless and losing life is literally a death sentence with the horde scaling so 🤷‍♀️

I agree with the feeling that going from the Tier 1 axe to the blowtorch is quite a downer, it does feel less cool and powerful to use (and also trading AoE for mono-target in a game that's about killing a horde of zombie is kinda bad), however I can't really comment on its effectiveness.

[smoky pivot]

Minigun did 0 damage for me. The tank just looked at mobs but never shot at anyone 😦 Just to edit the next run i did the minigun worked so no idea how i broke it.

[green dust]

TBH the skill that gives the bonuses when you're closer to death is my favourite skill about Pyro. Maybe it's not for you, but there are people like me who enjoy the hell out of it.

BTW anyone can confirm if lifesteal works? I've had 1,5% last game and I swear to got, lifesteal hasn't ticked even once

[bright bay]

on selecting powerup/levelup bonus the mouse over sound on each card is way too loud. unpleasently disturbing in my case.

the small stats powerups are marked with yellow spots just like item boxes. very confusing for me who played the previous versions. i want to rush each of them, as i want to stack items, that can change massively the gameplay, but most are just "fake". also do they expire after some time, if not collected like regular (white) powerups?

the weapon nerfs make boss rush mode "different".

Protocol: Critical is now pushing abilities!? Did I overread some patch note?

Not sure which sound it is precisely, probably the one for collecting exp gems: too loud, actually annoying. as if someone plays a flipper game less than one meter away from you.

After the 10 minutes I can tell, that the major leveling feels good again. If you know your goal, you are going for it without getting lost.

Leveling speed feels good for me on boss rush. latest at 15 minutes, All major skills are up and I have my mind free to go for minmaxing and avoiding contact.

[bright bay]

explosions from explosive arrow are still ridiculously OP, even more after weapon nerfs.

the sound after clicking a card from selection is also annoying and too loud.

short summary from a 20minutes run:

• overall leveling feels good and straight forward just like before 0.5.
• new (additional?) sounds are really provoking unfunky feelings inside me.
• new yellow powerups should get an own color and rather not having a direction indicator.

[ember stratus]

Hey AutoFire is turning off and on Randomly... Picking up the Military Training seems to set it off and it carries over to the none Beta some how... went to none btea and afteer a bit it went away and worked properly so went back to beta and it came back weird guys

[fathom laurel]

i just finished fully upgrading the pyro today, it could really use some buffs and a bit more work

[wise anchor]

love those little easter eggs like infernax, through the fire and flame and emotional damage. beta works quiet fine, didn´t find a bug yet. I kinda miss ghost AI protocol for weapons. but guess it was too op and had to go. one "problem" this update will not fix is having nothing to put points into. I am only missing like 2 points for the entire tree so after that there is no metaprogression if not counting pyro unlock and achievements.

[dim needle]

Hold My Keg
Survive 20 minutes without upgrading any weapons

Skill Issue
Survive 20 minutes without using any abilities

@deft tartan these 2 achievements were not given to me when I decided to do all 5 achievements at the same time in 1 game playing solo as a tank without using anything by pressing the button skip all 20 minutes

one more request can be added to the game Inferno salvo for the last added character who has a red ax